1. Your guy only wants to see you on Saturday nights.
2. Your guy is not patient enough to teach you the dance.

You have two options:

1. dump him and find a guy that likes to do what you like to do and will hang out with you enough to fulfill that need.

2. learn the dance form on your own and see if that makes things better or worse.

Option 1 (dumpging your bf) will hurt for about 6 months or for about as long as it takes to find another guy. (hopefully a patient one)

Option 2 (learning tango) will hurt for about 6 months and if you fall in love with Tango, the guy will not matter, because you will have Tango. Either way you’re in for about 6 months of crap. I believe that option 2 is the much better option, but I’m biased.

I have a gf whom I dragged over from Salsa (kicking and screaming) and now we have a great time. But it took a year or so before she really got into Tango and now she has her own dance partners and we have a very nice social life in tango. It has definitely given us a new dimension in our relationship as well as something to do together. But at times it was not fun or easy getting to this point and it required a lot of patience on both our parts.

The one thing you can’t do is expect a dancer to not dance. It is so sad and often the case in the tango community that we lose one of our members to a non-dancing person. Invariably that member always comes back after the break-up with the same old story about how miserable they were b/c they couldn’t dance any more. That kind of thing can kill a relationship. But it more often than not is a slow and painful death.

So do yourself a favor and come join the fun. It might suck at first. But the rewards are endless. Trust me, you’ll see. cheers and good luck! lg

Anyway, when I was with those boyfriends, even though I was teaching 3-4 nights a week, I still managed to make time to spend with the guy I was with. If he really wanted to, he would make time to spend with you, but it seems he is content to just see you on Saturdays. Which is fine if you are content with this as well, but it seems you are not.

If you want different things from the relationship it most likely won’t work out in the long run. Your guy may also see tango as his “me” time, he may not want you there. Anyway, if you do decide to take up Tango, do it for you, not because you think its something he wants you to do. Talk to him and find out if it bothers him that you only see each other once a week and maybe you can find some more time to spend together or if he really doesn’t want to spend more time with you than that, then you know its time to break up with him.

Then I discovered Argentine tango – quite by accident, as I had no appreciation of the sensual elegance of this form until I went to an exhibition at a museum last April and was completely seduced by it! Sharon doesn’t even dance this (I’m working on her) but I find it absolutely compelling. Frankly that relationship seems extraordinarily tenuous at times lately, but the inner power and freedom to feel with great passion that Argentine tango has unleashed within me in the past year will be with me forever.

I suppose most art is sublimated libido (not everyone will agree with me but I’m right ) and your love for your amante may be driving you to explore dance for now – so be it! Explore! But I encourage you to pursue the art of dance with your own curiosity and lust for self discovery no matter the final outcome of your relationship…the inner power and freedom you discover will make you an even more compelling woman than you likely already are, and I promise you will love yourself more as you progress on the journey.

Finally, if he can’t be encouraging or gentle with you in your discovery process, consider that this likely is how he is in other areas of intimate expression, and you might choose a better man. Some of us exist. With warm wishes for your happiness…

James

at some point in EVERY relationship there usually does come a conversation that revolves around ‘it’s THIS OR THAT or it’s me’. that’s not to say it HAS to be an “either or” situation but i just wanted you to know that this is a non-gender and non-tango specific issue. where one or the other of you has a passion, be it hanggliding or tango, there needs to be compromise. no offense but, generally speaking, someone that isn’t willing to be patient enough to ‘catch you up to speed’ or doesn’t like encouraging you ENOUGH is a jerk. as much as i’d like to believe tango doesn’t have ‘jerks’ amongst its ranks, i guess that’s just not the case. you may be better off without him. he’s ONLY been dancing 4 years. he simply doesn’t know that much yet. if he were a better lead, he’d already know how to dance tango WITH YOU. GUARANTEED: you will pass him in ability very soon. dancing with different partners is key to your success. boldly strike up a conversation with the BEST lead in your community – in your height range – and ask him to dance with you at a practica – NOT a milonga (not a good idea); explain your situation and see if he doesn’t step up to the plate — i bet that man can take you, a novice, and by the end of the tanda, make you feel and LOOK like you already know how to dance tango, and, you will have your ‘ephiphany dance’ and probably become as hooked as he is now. you should explain to the lead that you do not expect him to dance with you ever again but that you’d like to get a feel for what all the hubbub is about. your boyfriend may not like dancing with you NOW but he should still be respectful to you and agree to a ’standard operating procedure’… for most couples that means the first and last tanda of the evening. it’s not set in stone.

TANGO is magical and intense and the SECRET is in the music. we each do the ’same thing differently’. listen to the music A LOT. i did 24/7 for about 3 months. and i danced 6 nights a week for a couple of years. i’ve been dancing 8 years now.

my boyfriend has been dancing tango 6 months. yes, we met at a festival. a festival that, by all matter of reason, the man should NOT have been at (it’s for intermediate and advanced dancers). we were standing next to each other talking to a mutual friend so at the end of the cortina he knew enough to answer my cabaceo so i figured he knew what he was doing. he said he didn’t. it was a MILONGA. HIS FIRST. i simply said, ‘no worries’ and back-led him. and yes, i didn’t follow protocol and taught him a basic step on the dancefloor. it was so crowded no one noticed. i did tell him it was ‘generally not accepted’ but i wanted him to have fun and get around the dancefloor without feeling like a complete idiot. we managed just fine.

when i found out he was a ‘newbie’ (just 2 months at that point) i just encouraged him (and continue to do so) to dance with as many partners as possible. tall, short, big, small, very good, amazingly bad, whatever. i encouraged him to continue to find a practice partner (he was already looking for one). and he has. he wants to dance ALL the time. i don’t. and so he does. and i don’t. what i DON’T do is try to teach him. we are hoping to take a series of classes from one of my favorite teachers (it’s a scheduling issue we’ve got to work thru) and we will practice those lessons and do drills, just like we would if i knew nothing. i can give him feedback about what i ‘feel’ and what i think he should try but, first and foremost, i want a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with him. we have so many other things in common, outside of tango, that my area of focus is on that.

so… find yourself a partner to practice with at these practicas that he goes to. take more classes IF tango gets into your blood. i danced 3 nights a week and did drills and did what most of ‘us’ that become obsessed do. bottom line: it really is JUST a dance.

please remember the basics and drill and practice these a 1000 times… keep your thighs, knees and ankles together thru turns, keeping your heels down (stay grounded). find and maintain your own axis. DO NOT lean on the man’s shoulders with dead weight… lightly press against him. ask a woman in your group to explain what i mean by these terms if it’s all new to you. watch YouTube videos.

ultimately i believe that relationships are more important than tango… but i don’t necessarily think i’m in the majority on that point!!!

GOOD LUCK!!! Darlene (Denver)

Like Mari said, I encourage dance for the sake of dance. If you liked your lessons, then take more, but don’t do it for anyone but you! Otherwise, if you try to improve simply to win his affection and approval and (ultimately) his time, and it still doesn’t work out, it could put a negative slant on your dance experience, and that, to me, is the greater tragedy.

Good luck.

“Your partner isn’t necessarily going to be your best dance partner. You might not be that great when you start out, but the chances of you eventually being better than him are very high as it takes women less time to progress. I have heard it can take a man up to 3 yrs to be as proficient as a woman after 1. So the odds are in your favour.
Lastly, if you do well in Tango, your BF might not like it, especially if you become better than him.”

Right on!! What she said.

1) Stay home. Then tell him it’s Tango or you because “Real men don’t dance.”

or

2) Go. Then wrap your arms around him and follow his lead. Find out what a real man can do.

good luck!

It won’t matter if he is on a different dance level to you. If the issue is about spending time together, then this is another way to do that as you can go to events together. Even if you don’t dance with each other, being in the same room can make a difference.

Another thing. Your partner isn’t necessarily going to be your best dance partner. You might not be that great when you start out, but the chances of you eventually being better than him are very high as it takes women less time to progress. I have heard it can take a man up to 3 yrs to be as proficient as a woman after 1. So the odds are in your favour.

Lastly, if you do well in Tango, your BF might not like it, especially if you become better than him. This could cause other problems and might be a topic for another post!